Projects: Great and Small

This morning as I was having a coffee and was thinking about today's blog when I thought about last evening's small project. 

Oak Book Marks, homemade walnut stain

  I was sitting in my big chair reading and set my book down for a minute suddenly I  needed a book mark.  Since love wood and keep all sorts of little pieces and off cuts I went into the shop and found a strip of thin oak that I had saved from some thing. (in the container on the window sill) (we save all wood don't we?) Then I sanded it a bit, stained it, over night the stain dried and this morning I waxed the book marks.  Oak looks good, smooth waxed wood feels good and now I have wood workers book marks.

  The great project is one that I completed a couple of years ago and that has become an eveyday part of our lives in our family room.

  This is our coffee/occasional table from the family room.  I bought three off cuts like this for cheap, they had been sliced from a soft maple stump I think, with a chain saw.  To say that the wood was rough was a huge understatement.  After hours with planes and grinders ( I made two green garbage bags full of shaving and dust) and two quarts of varnish the grain came through big time. The top is not perfectly flat, I keep thinking I could spend some more time and make it perfect but....we love it just the way it is.

  I still have one slab left, it is slightly smaller but I am sure it is just as interesting.  One of these days I'll have to do something with it.

  Neither of the projects was rocket science, (note they haven't exploded or crashed killing people and costing a fortune) they are just things made from wood.  Both of the projects required basic tools and some application of force. 

  The book marks could be made by anyone, anywhere, as long as they had a source of oak sliced to the thickness of card stock.  The wood was a left over, probably from a cutting board that I had trimmed to size sometime in the past. Stout scissors and sand paper were all the tools needed to finish the project.

   The table required a few more power tools, an electric plane, a 7 inch grinder and then all the other finishing tools.    The stump was in the back corner of a lumber store and they were quite pleased to make some money on it, actually it was on its way to the fire due to lack of interest from customers.  Lucky timing for me.

  I like wood, be it large or small. I perfer to be surrounded by wood, leather, glass and material fiber when ever possible.